Terps' Burns injured in pickup gameUniversity of Maryland...

Sports briefly

University of Maryland basketball player Evers Burns, a 6-foot-7 junior from Woodlawn, has fractured a bone below his left elbow but is expected to be ready when practice begins Oct. 15.

"It's one of those things that happens in pickup games," Maryland coach Gary Williams said yesterday. "I encourage the guys to play. He'll be in a cast for a couple of weeks, and then he'll get a couple of weeks of rehabilitation. But he should be back for the start of practice."

Burns, who averaged 7.8 points and 3.4 rebounds off the bench for the Terrapins last season, is expected to battle transfer Chris Kerwin for the starting job at center. Burns was injured in a pickup game outside his dormitory Sept. 1.

Tennis

U.S. Open singles finalist Jim Courier and doubles finalists Scott Davis and David Pate will be joined by Andre Agassi when the U.S. Davis Cup team plays its semifinal match against Germany, the U.S. Tennis Association announced.

The two nations will meet on red clay at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo., on Sept. 20-22.

Davis and Pate will be making their Davis Cup debuts. They replace the team of Rick Leach and Jim Pugh, who were 4-0 last year in Davis Cup play.

U.S. Davis Cup captain Tom Gorman said Leach and Pugh had not been playing up to their past standard.

"Leach and Pugh just haven't been playing that well. That was my main concern. We realize that they have an unbeaten record but you have to look at what is happening currently," Gorman said.

* Australian Jack Crawford, who won three Grand Slam tennis tournaments in one year, died at age 83. Crawford, who won Wimbledon, the French and Australian Opens in 1933 and lost the U.S. Open final to Briton Fred Perry in the same year, died in a nursing home in Sydney, Australia, after a long illness.

Track and field

Merlene Ottey ran the second-fastest time this year in winning the women's 100 meters in 10.84 seconds at the ISTAF track and field meet in Berlin.

The Jamaican star got off to a sizzling start and sprinted home with her long stride to beat Gwen Torrence of the United States, who was second in 10.96.

Hockey

Team USA already owns a Canada Cup victory over Finland. To make the finals, though, the Americans will have to do it again -- this time, without the home-ice edge.

The Americans and Finns square off again tonight in Hamilton, Ontario, in the first of two semifinal games. The winner meets the winner of tomorrow night's Canada-Sweden semifinal in the best-of-three finals, beginning Saturday night in Montreal.

The United States finished the preliminary round with a 4-1-0 record, including Monday night's 4-3 victory over Finland at Chicago Stadium -- one of the smallest ice surfaces in the world. The Copps Coliseum has an NHL-regulation 200-by-85-foot surface that gives the free-skating Finns more room to operate.

* Eric Lindros hasn't changed his mind about not playing in Quebec.

Hockey's most celebrated teen-ager skated in Team Canada's practice yesterday at Maple Leaf Gardens, then said not even more money would get him to play with the Nordiques.

"Nothing is going to affect my decision," he said when asked if he would change his mind if the Nordiques sweetened the pot. "It's got nothing to do with the people of Quebec. It's a business decision."

Lindros made his first on-ice appearance at the Colisee on Monday night in a Canada Cup game against the Soviet Union and drew much less booing than expected from the crowd of 14,275. The jeers subsided further after he scored a goal in Canada's 3-3 tie with the Soviets.

"It was impressive," Nordiques general manager Pierre Page said. "The important thing was that people understood that these are negotiations."

Golf

Doris Taylor, a 30-handicapper from Eagle's Nest, used one of her best rounds of the year to shoot a net 67 and open a five-stroke lead halfway through the 50th annual Oriole tournament, the handicap championship of the Women's Golf Association, at Chestnut Ridge Country Club.

Taylor, in the event because club mate Helen Witmyer entered her, admitted she was relaxed through the round because she figured if she was playing well, everybody else was, too. What everybody else was not doing, however, was 1-putting six greens and taking only 31 putts, about six below the day's average.

Catherine Ballich of Green Spring and Pat Hagan of Turf Valley, ** who had three back-nine birdies in posting the low gross of 83, were tied for second at 72.

College soccer

Goucher opened its men's season with a 7-0 victory ovevisiting Penn State-York, as Steve Montgomery scored three goals and Percy Moore two.

College field hockey

Kristen Scheffenacker scored out of a scramble in front of the goal, and Towson State defeated visiting La Salle, 1-0, with 3 minutes, 28 seconds left in sudden-death overtime. The goal ended 96 minutes 32 seconds of scoreless activity and enabled the Tigers to go to 2-0, matching their victory total of a year ago.